Snapshots
by Queen Isa
Summary: Robert Chase was 16yrs old when he had first put his trust in God and He had not delivered. Chase centric.
1. Chapter 1

Dr. Gregory House, Head of the Department of Diagnostics at Princeton Plainsborough Teaching Hospital hated funerals. They were too –_emotional_ - everyone in black, speaking in formal, loving tones of people they really hated, and couldn't wait to see six feet under. Also, churches and gravesites weren't the best place for a man with a cane. Either the cane made too much noise on marble floors, sank into lush red carpeting or got stuck or slipped in mud. He didn't really know why funerals were held – it wouldn't bring the dead back to life. The only people he liked at burials were the priests – not because of their comforting words of _'ashes to ashes and dust to dust' _but because of the same reason people of society hated them – they weren't emotional enough for a funeral.

In this particular instance he was standing in a cemetery in Sydney, Australia, cursing the stubborn will of a dead man for dying and leaving his estranged son completely alone in the world.

Dr House turned his attention to his intensivist and saw that he was keeping well with his "stiff upper-lip" doctrine that was a trait from his British-descended cool. The last Chase man was stoic, his hands made white by the force by which he was holding a rosary, subconsciously mouthing the priest's words.

_Robert was sixteen years old when he first put his trust in God and He had not delivered. _

_He had sat, huddled next to his mother's hospital bed, his hands running over the rosary at the same time that the sounds of life support that kept his mother from the grips of death beeped. _

Hail Mary… pray for us sinners…

_At the rustle of material Robert looks up, startled out of the middle of the rosary. He looks up in time to see a familiar sight, the tails of his father's black coat; walking out of his life once again. _

_He turns to face the expressionless face of his mother – once again taking up a vigil that would have no end. _

A rough hand shakes him out of his reverie.

"Wake up, Chase." The voice was rough and showed no sympathy - not that Robert expected any - from his boss, especially not on the day of his father's funeral.

"Hurry up. Thanks to you, I may not have the time to have a drink before Cuddy finds me," House snarks, "and you know how I love mixing drugs and alchohol." Chase blinked, his eyes clouded in confusion, "What - ?"

"Let's go, wombat."

House turned and began to unsteadily manoevre himself – and his cane – on the dry, crumbly ground, leaving Chase no option but to follow.

The wake is crowded. There are people spilling in and out of manned-doors, all wearing a range of attires – with one commonality – black. It is a black that speaks to Chase as if from a long forgotten dream – or nightmare. It is the symbol of both his salvation - and his destruction. He had been sixteen when he had first encountered the conotations that such a colour could bring.

"…_. Abigail showed her unwavering kindness in the raising of her fine young son, Robert. He is a lasting tribute to such a wonderful woman…." _

_Abigail Chase's son, upon hearing those words from the lips of his mother's brother, clutched the rosary that had not left his ssight since his mother's death, until his knuckles turned white. He was suddenly posessed with a childish wish to scream and stamp his feet. He wished to stand up in front of the congregation of mourners and ask them where _they _were the day his mother died? The days her "lasting tribute" had to skip sport because of the bruises her "unwavering kindness" would bring?_

_He made to speak and was silenced by a hand contorting muscle and flesh into streaks of white hot pain. His father's fingers were digging into the flesh between his collar bone in a universal guesture that said only one thing:_ no.

_For the first time in months Rowan Chase looked at his son waiting for an answer to the non-verbalised question. Robert stared back at his father through haunted eyes and nodded: _yes.

… now and in the hour of our death….


	2. Chapter 2

In later years, Robert Chase would remember the week following his mother's death and subsequent funeral in varying detail. The main feeling that presided over Robert during that time was confusion. Confusion, mainly aimed at his father. Except for the brief glimpse of him, that Rober had gleamed from the room he occupied at the hospital when his mother was alive and her funeral, Robert had neither heard from or seen his father in months - and then, suddenly - there he was. He sat in his study, occupied his place at the table and went through the motions of a night cap before bed - as if he had never been away. He did not address his absence to Robert - nor take any notice of him at all. Robert was expected to keep out of sight, which he did, apart from one time.

_After much deliberation, Robert had decided to speak to his father, what he would say, he did not know. He just needed to speak, to ebb the flow of thoughts that whirled around in his head that hit the hardest at night, saying that it was his fault his mother was dead. He knocked softly onto the door of his father's study, waited, and pushed the door open. He stood on the threshold of his father's domain, waiting to be noticed. After several agonising moments, Rowan turned to his son._

_"Well?" Rowan's slurred pronunciation, discarded dinner jacket, and loosened tie gave Robert the immediate impression that his father was not sober - he did not need the evidence that his eyes gave him - Rowan's hands were gripped solidly around a brandy glass - the decanter beside his elbow was half full. _

_The first thought that entered Robert's mind was 'Is this my fault too?', and it almost made him run away. Before he could stop himself, he found himself asking, in a very small voice, "Why are you here?"._

_Rowan did not respond immediately. Instead, he raised his empty brandy glass to his eye and looked through the glass at the distorted shape of the boy. As if son had become a disease that he must manage, and he was looking through a microscope. _

_"I am here to look after my assets." It was the impersonal tone of a doctor who had never failed._

_Robert nodded, not knowing what that meant – but knowing, sub-consciously that he had mutated in some way - he had become but a diagnosis for his father._

_"In - in that case - may i continue to go seminary school?" He asked, in a shaky voice, looking at anything but his father. Hoping that, if his father could not forgive him, then maybe God would._

_The effect those words had on Rowan were instantaneous. He slammed the brandy glass onto the desk, breaking it into tiny little pieces. Pieces which resembled his son's shattered heart._

The next day, Robert was sent to Sydney and enrolled in boarding school.

All thoughts of forgiveness were eroded from his mind.

Robert would once again voice the question of "why are you here?" to his father, ten years later. Once again, their meeting would be shadowed by another's presence - the ghost of the woman who had connected their lives. She had been both beautiful, dangerous – and as intoxicating as the alcohol she consumed in dizzying amounts. Their meeting would also be shadowed by another, more immediate presence – one who was intent upon finding out the problem between Robert and his father.

Robert hated them all then.

He disliked Cameron's nosiness, lecturing him about forgiveness – acting as a stark reminder of what he was lacking – faith in God's ability to forgive. He hated House for baiting him – trying to diagnose everything and everyone. Worse yet, Robert hated himself for caving and telling House what his father had done or, not done – during his childhood – laying his life onto petri-dishes that House could examine and judge. Most of all, he hated the tangles of words that fell on the deaf ears of his father, the mountains and valleys of regrets piled so high and so deep that he was drowning in them – with no Shepherd to guide him.


End file.
